But on this week’s migration debate, the tenor of the Coalition’s contributions felt familiar.
As Ley did the media rounds after the weekend’s rallies, she said immigration was “putting pressures in every corner of this country … on infrastructure, on housing and on our way of life.”
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley wanted to strike a different tone. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“I speak to Australians who can’t find homes, who are taking three times as long for their commute to work, who see the pressure on infrastructure all around them every day. And they want to know that we do have a balanced migration program,” she told Nine’s Today on Wednesday.
Since the election, several Liberal MPs have said in private that Dutton’s approach of blaming migrants for Australia’s housing problems didn’t land. They thought many voters saw it as simplistic at best, racist at worst.
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg made a similar point in public. “Someone said to me, ‘if you’re a migrant, you got blamed for the housing crisis’ … And that wasn’t a very good starting point for our campaign,” he told The Guardian’s podcast.
Ley this week was at pains to emphasise: “This is never about migrants because I love our Australian migrants, and I’m one myself.”
But it was not a smooth sell. “[If] it’s never been about migrants, why did you raise them then?” asked one interviewer. “Are you, as the opposition, helping by attacking the government’s migration policy here? Or are you giving them [protesters] more fuel?” asked another.
The anti-immigration rally in Sydney last Sunday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
The opposition leader said she was calling for a sensible debate. As was her new immigration spokesman, Paul Scarr, whom Ley appointed due to his advocacy for multicultural communities.
“I do not support blaming immigrants or migrants for the issues we’re facing today. I think it’s wrong, I think it’s divisive, and I think it tears at our social fabric,” Scarr said in the Senate.
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“I do support having a reasoned, considered debate in relation to the issue … If the debate is not had, extreme elements will fill or seek to fill the vacuum, and that’s something we must guard against.”
A sensible debate is a reasonable request. But there are considerations: one is when you do it, the other is how.
Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah pushed back on calls from One Nation and the Coalition to launch a Senate inquiry into immigration. “Sure, we should be able to have a rational debate about migration,” she said.
“But rationality goes out the window when that argument is co-opted by neo-Nazis … This place turns the dog whistle into a megaphone.”
Which brings us to Ley’s team. When One Nation sought an inquiry into immigration off the back of the weekend rallies, five Coalition senators voted with the right-wing minor party, including frontbencher Bridget McKenzie. Four senators, including Scarr as immigration spokesman, opposed it. Most others avoided the vote. It was a sign of old divisions.
In the end, Ley’s call for a rational debate was sabotaged by her own side.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, whose own ambitions went south when Ley took the leadership, appeared on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing. She began with talking points on immigration, housing and infrastructure.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price draped in the Australian flag in the Senate for Flag Day on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Then Price strayed into other territory.
The shadow minister said the federal government was bringing in migrants “from particular countries over others” to win votes, naming the “Indian community” as an example. It was an extraordinary and false claim. It also compounded an attack on Indian Australians, who had been targeted by the weekend rallies.
Within an hour of the interview, Price issued a clarifying statement. “Australia maintains a longstanding and bipartisan non-discriminatory migration policy. Suggestions otherwise are a mistake,” she said.
Ley and her office had ensured Price’s quick clarification. That was the new leader on show.
Still, Price refused to apologise, and the fallout deepened. Coalition sources reported anger and exasperation in the party room. Ley started praising the contributions of Australia’s “amazing” Indian community. Liberal senator Dave Sharma, who has Indian heritage, helped mop up the mess. But the turnaround came too late.
The last thing Ley’s rebrand needed was a repeat of the “Chinese spies” saga at the last election, which isolated the Chinese Australian community. Nor can Ley afford signs of party room division.
This week, her team looked like the same one Dutton took to the election and it sounded like they were singing from his hymn sheet.
In terms of Ley’s pledges, it was one from three.
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